It looks like those clever science bods have done it again and gone and invented transisters that are 1molecue long.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wired

Scientists at the University of Arizona have discovered how to use quantum mechanics to turn molecules into working transistors in the lab, a breakthrough that might one day lead to high-powered computers the size of a postage stamp.

Results of the as-yet-unpublished study came together just weeks before Canadian researchers performed a similar feat using chemical means. That experiment appeared in the journal Nature last week. Together, the two studies could bring the final frontier in nanocomputing -- a single-molecule transistor -- considerably closer to reality.

The Arizona team's proposed transistor is a ring-shaped molecule such as benzene. Attaching the two electrical leads to non-opposite sides of the ring -- at, say, the 12 o'clock and 4 o'clock positions -- allows the electrons to flow through the molecular ring and not destructively interfere with one another. (Due to the quantum wavelike laws of nature that electrons follow, attaching electrical leads at the 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock positions causes the current to cancel itself out.)